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Career Transitions

If the statistics are to be believed, it seems that retiring may be bad for your health. In fact, one British study found that, after an initial period of greater health and well-being, retirement can increase your risk of illness (physical or mental) by as much as 60%.

You have spent your life in a corporate career – whether that is private, public or voluntary sector – and had both a clear career path and even clearer identity. But as you leave this life, have you thought about who you are or will be – and what your new identity should be?

As the CEO of a Girl Scout council, Janice Holly Booth of Gastonia, North Carolina, figured she would remain in that role until retirement. But when she turned 50, she learned that cutbacks would leave her out of a job.

“I had intended that the Girl Scouts would be my last career, but you know what they say about the best-laid-plans,” Booth says.

Our offices and assistants were reassigned, our successors were named. We knew that the loss of our work — and ready-made conversation and colleagues, deadlines and commitments — would create a void. We understood that our time would be largely our own and that we would need to figure out what to do with it. What we did not understand until after we retired was that the end of our careers meant that we would lose part of our identities too.